Left Front partners call for relook at policies

Kolkata: With the near decimation of the CPI (M)-led Left Front in the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, LF partners feel there is a need to relook at their policies rather than change the present leadership.

"We don't believe in changing some faces. It will not help the matter. What is needed is a relook at the policies that we have been pursuing. We need to see what went wrong policy-wise," RSP leader Manoj Bhattacharya said.

"Leadership change is not the answer. We also need to review our organisational lacunae," said RSP state secretary Khisti Goswami.

The persistent call for a change in CPI-M's leadership since its dismal show in the elections grew louder with a recent demonstration of some present and expelled leaders questioning the party brass and demanding immediate change in the leadership to save it from being wiped out from the state's politics.

Other LF partners like the Forward Bloc too have faced demands of change in the party leadership after the debacle.

"We need to look at what went wrong. I doubt whether a leadership change can be the answer to revive the fortunes of the Left," Forward Bloc leader Naren Chatterjee said.

However, expelled CPI (M) leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah felt there was no chance of the Left's revival without a change of leadership.

"How will the Left movement grow in Bengal? The present leaders have completely failed. Unless new blood is infused in the leadership, there are no chances of revival. These old and physically incapable leaders don't have the capacity to lead the party," Mollah said.